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Why is it called:
"Too much time", but "Too many hours"?

When you Google "too much or too many" you get:

Much is always used together with an uncountable noun (like 'oil' or 'water') while
Many is always used with nouns that are countable (like 'table' or 'computer')

But isn't "time" very countable or atleast measurable, but maybe that's not the same?

Is it correct to say that you should use:
Many in front of plural nouns, like "many hours", "many fun times", "many tables", but
Much in front of non plural nouns, like "much air", "much fun", "much oil".

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    No. Countness is a property of how nouns behave, not in the first analysis of whether the referent is etically denumerable. English being perverse, the two sometimes don't correspond. "How much money do you have on you?" ['money' here a non-count usage] ... "Three pounds" [showing that the referent is certainly countable.] The test for a count usage is Will the usage accept numeral insertion? 'I have time to do this' BUT *I have 3 times to do this'. Contrast 'They only met that one time' AND 'They only met those three times' [here, a count usage of 'time'].
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Commented Jan 3, 2022 at 11:50
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    I was writing an answer but the question got closed before I could finish: You have a mass noun, sometimes called uncountable, which expresses a concept. For example, music, peace, work, and time. These concepts can be measured in different ways, we can have "a piece of music", or COUNTABLE "a song", "a symphony" "an opera", we can have an "act of peace" or COUNTABLE "a truce", "an armistice”, "treaty" etc. , "an amount of work" COUNTABLE: "a job", "a task", "an errand" etc. The concept of time can be divided into subsets: seconds, hours, days, weeks, years, decades, centuries etc.
    – Mari-Lou A
    Commented Jan 3, 2022 at 15:29

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Wow! this is a damn good question. In my opinion, when you associate the number of hours, it becomes a countable noun for that reason using "How many hours" is valid for time context.

The other example I can think of is that "How much milk?" vs. "How many cups of milk?" Here "coups of milk" is a countable entity, and for that reason, we can use "many." I hope it helps.

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  • This doesn't clearly address the key part of the question about "too much time".
    – KillingTime
    Commented Jan 3, 2022 at 11:27

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